Five colors of Teyla
by Anuna
Summary: Teyla, in many colors, through Major Lorne's eyes. References to S4 and somewhat dark version of the future. Teyla/Lorne


Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis, sadly

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Stargate Atlantis, sadly. No money was made with this story.

**Pairing: **Teyla/Lorne  
**Genre:** drama, hurt/comfort and UST  
**Rating:** PG - 13  
**Warnings:** regular character death is mentioned, references of S4 and my own version of S5, that is somewhat dark

**Summary: **_The look she gives him – filled with gratitude and happiness - is something he can't ever dream to capture with his brushes. _

**A/N:** it's written entirely from Lorne's POV. I used to draw and paint, and that is how I got into whole colors musings in this story. Also, I suck at titles, but I got to pay hommage to one of my favorite Star Trek Voyager episodes by using its title in the fifth part of the fic. I didn't want this one to be cutesy, hence the way I chose to end it (OMG I killed off somebody in this one!). It should leave you feeling a bit sad and bittersweet. I hope you'll enjoy it - I don't write Teyla often, but when I do, I enjoy it, and this was my first time writing Lorne. Feedback is loved.

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**1. Blue**

It's been a month since he got here but he still isn't used to this place – the small rooms, a shower that adjusts the warmth by itself – because of his ATA gene (not that Evan minds it, but still, it's creepy), and the sight of the ocean all around this place. It's not that he doesn't like it – he does - it's different, isolated and sometimes he feels lonely.

That is why he draws and paints more than usual. Most people don't know about his little hobby, and for the moment he is content to keep it private. He is a keen observer, his eyes memorize more than his logic mind ever does and when he's alone, all those sights stuck behind his eyes, cluttered in that part of the brain reserved for visual only pour through his hands, down his brushes and onto the canvas.

At first all he paints is the City. He starts with what he sees – piers and water and pillars, spots of light that dance above the water at night; clouds and the vast, endless sky. A month or two later it turns into castles he imagined when he was a kid, floating among those clouds, defying dragons and evil knights; and Evan knows he is homesick.

After he sees the Wraith for the first time the castle turns into a blur of the storm, a tiny shell among the ocean waves. He didn't see the last years storm himself, but his painting looks like anger of the waves that Rodney had described once over the dinner. Evan decides he doesn't want to paint his nightmares, doesn't want to be homesick and simply stops.

And then, a few days later when he wants to paint, nothing comes. His mind is empty, his fingers are still and there's a knot inside his chest. When he tries to observe – the City and the people in it – nothing stays behind his eyes.

Several days later – it's Sunday and it feels just as lonely as Johnny Cash song Colonel Sheppard likes to play and sing – someone decides to join him in the City's restaurant where he's sitting for last half an hour, staring at his sandwich.

Evan looks up and meets the eyes of Teyla Emmagan. She smiles – the sight is calm, warming and he absently thinks of his brushes when she speaks.

"Your eyes look tired," she says and he knows she isn't wrong. He had seen himself in the mirror, but usually people don't notice, because he is still doing his duty, chatting to others without really listening to them, and he _looks _okay. On the surface nothing is amiss and nobody knows of emptiness behind his eyes.

"I know that," he smiles lazily and her face turns more serious. Maybe he isn't the only observer here.

"I was wondering… would you take me to Mainland, Major? There are medical supplies I am supposed to bring to my people, and maybe being outside of the City would do you a wealth of good," she offers and Evan almost declines – but then he thinks of creeks and trees and fresh green grass. The smile sneaks its way back to his face and Teyla smiles back – something rarely pure in this world. That's how he finds himself accepting and an hour later he is on the Mainland, helping Teyla unload the jumper, lazily walking around, lying on the grass and staring into tree tops above him, playing catch with the Athosian children. They return to Atlantis by the nightfall.

Next day, after his duties are done, Evan finds himself painting her smile.

**2. Gold**

Evan picks himself up from the floor wondering isn't he supposed to be embarrassed with the fact that a woman is kicking his ass. With style.

"You need to concentrate, Major," says Teyla in her patient mentor tone, but Evan can't fail to notice it is laced with a grin that stretches all over her face. It's something he sees rarely – and for a moment he basks in the golden glow of her smile and twinkling eyes, wondering if little girl Emmagan had to learn how to fight before she could learn how to dance or sing.

"_Major Lorne_," she calls for his attention but the smile is still in place. It seems she doesn't mind his mind wandering for a moment – and right now he's more preoccupied with the way the light reflects in her hair, mentally mixing colors to find that perfect warm brown with the glow of gold. She waits and he offers a grin of his own as a means of apology. However, his supposedly cute dimples and charming smile don't serve to save him from Teyla's superior fighting skill and within less than a minute Evan sees the floor up close again. He wonders if Colonel Sheppard ever took this kind of ass kicking from Teyla – probably not – yet his ego fails to reassert itself and make his pride hurt. By the end of the session all Evan wants to do is paint.

Paint _her_, in hues of gold.

Two days later he gives Teyla the painting. The canvas is small, and it fits nicely in her strong hands. She looks at the painting of her, colors mixed with motion of her arms, and Evan feels the blush creeping its way up his neck.

"It looks like I am dancing," she says and her eyes deepen with hints of sadness.

"It does look like that," answers Evan. The look she gives him – filled with gratitude and happiness - is something he can't ever dream to capture with his brushes.

**3. Red**

The cell is cold, the walls are narrow and hard and the floor they're forced to sit on is hard. The room is almost drained of color, except of the red of the pain he constantly feels and almost can _see_ due to his cracked ribs. Everything else is faded and grey.

Evan knows every millimeter of this cell by now, but that is not the reason for keeping his eyes closed. This way it's easier staying still and quiet, painting the images behind his eyes that keep the pain at bay.

His teammates and Radek are equally still, despite the injuries they had sustained – everyone is exhausted, dirty, cold and hungry. Their captors don't interrogate them – Evan suspects they want something in return for them – but they don't give them regular meals either. Being quiet helps to avoid being beaten. Evan's ribs hurt really badly and they are out of pain meds since yesterday.

After a week of imprisonment every picture Evan is able to conjure in his head is tainted with pain and frustration. He can't help but blame himself for putting them all under unnecessary risk, no matter how many times Radek points out they were lured into a trap. All they can do is waiting – wait for Atlantis to do something, to send them help and get them out.

On the eighth day Evan is out of the images, out of the fantasies that can keep the pain bearable. He knows Radek is looking at him worriedly because he fails to sit still longer than twenty minutes.

"Try not to think," advises Radek, checking his forehead for fever. Evan is pretty sure he has it. The redness is clouding his mental canvas and he simply allows the hues of color, levels of pain to mix and himself to drift away again to see the ocean… the vast sky… remember flying a jumper, walking through the mainland forest… imagine the smiles of his friends.

Teyla's smile.

His mind fills with images of her; the shine of her hair, the harmony of her motion. And then, suddenly, but maybe not so unexpectedly she is completely, _gloriously_ naked in his mind's eye.

At first he opens his eyes as if the people sharing this cell could see what he just saw in his fantasy. Radek gives him a concerned look and Evan shakes his head to tell him that, _no, the pain isn't worse._ Then he licks his dry lips, looks at the dozing members of his team, and then returns to the fantasy.

It feels like going through the stash of Playboy of his older brother at first – it's forbidden but feels too good, his curiosity – and yes, _lust_ – gets the better of him. Evan can feel heat rising in his cheeks, but it has nothing to do with the fever.

At first he imagines just her outline of her body. Then he lets her walk around his mind - she is edging closer to him, and more of her body is clearly visible. His breathing is changing, his body is reacting, and he can't help it. The golden skin is in front of him, full breasts within his hand's reach and the pain isn't so bad any more.

Two days later they are rescued, and Evan is only barely aware of the voices around him. He knows Radek is worriedly and quietly hovering above him as Carson is checking him over – he can hear Carson's voice, feel the accent reverberating through his body, but can't make out the words.

A week later he is back on his feet, but still off duty. He spends his time walking around the city and painting. He paints _her_ – one large painting of her standing in the water, naked like he saw her in his feverish fantasy, looking over her shoulder. He makes her hair just a bit longer, her body slightly turned so that his brush could touch the roundness of her breast. Her eyes are distant and stormy, just like in those moments when she thinks nobody is watching her, in the moments when she's sad, but not desperate.

It's his most beautiful painting, and the only one nobody else is allowed to see.

**4. Purple**

Evan never saw a dress like that, a color so blindingly intensive, nor was her skin ever so inviting.

At the same time he never saw something that amazed him and hurt him more. Teyla is standing at the restaurant balcony talking to Doctor Keller, arms hugging her pregnant stomach covered with the purple fabric of her dress.

She looks like a goddess, the best impersonation of Mother Nature imaginable and Evan is stunned. Yet it's the sight he could never paint. Come to think of it, his hands usually hover useless over the canvas lately. He knows it's pathetic and he should get over it, stop daydreaming about her – because she isn't his. She is carrying another man's child in her body and that's a fact.

When he thinks of all those times he could have… _should have_ said something, done something, rules and professionalism be damned – the purple stings of pain fill his chest and he knows he won't be using that color on his paintings ever again.

**5. Silver**

The wind is harsh and cold, and the sky is grey. Clouds have spread, and the air feels fresh, somehow easier to breathe. Evan holds his gun tighter against his body, almost freezing in his uniform, but he patiently waits. This new planet is so much colder than Lantea – it's either that, or the fact they are at this spot again.

It's been a year but Teyla still wants to come to this place alone, and allows only few people to give her jumper flight to the "new" mainland.

She is kneeling on the ground, the long black coat wrapped around her body. The grave in front of her is marked with a simple stone with one single symbol engraved on it. Evan still doesn't have a heart to ask her about the meaning.

It's the grave of her son. She never got to hear him cry, because he wasn't born alive. It was the day when everything had gone to hell.

Kannan was killed before Teyla's very eyes soon after the birth. A month later they lost Sheppard. They didn't have a body to bury. Half of Evan's team was caught in the crossfire and got killed. He never knew if Perkins – who was just a boy who barely made twenty three - was dead or just injured. Evan didn't have time to check. Ronon dragged him away, saving his life, and Perkins, just like Sheppard, was left behind to meet his end. For a whole year it seemed like the death was waiting for them around any corner.

Then Ronon went missing in action two months ago and Evan led a frantic search and rescue party when they finally got an intel on his whereabouts. They managed to save him – he was beaten, injured, and in a terrible shape – but still alive. Even today he is in hospital bed, under Doctor Keller's care.

Sighing, Evan thinks about _the year of hell_ – how he privately calls it - wondering would they ever recover. He thinks about all those people who don't have a grave, and for the first time he nears the spot where Teyla is kneeling, tentatively walking toward her, with a field flower he picked just couple of meters away. She looks up at him as she feels him approach her – eyes sad, but calm; her expression a question.

"Do you mind?" he asks. She shakes her head and looks at him as he kneels, relinquishing his gun and placing the fragile flower above the grave.

"What is it for?" she asks.

"I don't really know the significance of the custom or how it came to be. We take flowers to our loved ones graves back on Earth," he replies.

"That was not what I meant," she answers in a whisper. "This is my son's grave."

He looks at her, sadness filling and tightening his chest. There wasn't time to grieve in the year that finally had passed. When they got Ronon back, Evan felt like he'd finally done something right, brought somebody home – finally he managed _not to leave someone behind;_ realizing how Sheppard must have felt every time when Pegasus Galaxy ripped somebody away from the protective hold of Atlantis.

After saving Ronon the circle was closed, or maybe broken. For good, hoped Evan. The year of hell was over. He could finally stop being the military commander of Atlantis, take a pause and grieve. He could even find time to paint – but he didn't dare to do it just yet. There was no light in his heart, no motion to make the painting come alive in his mind.

"Lots of them don't have a grave. Back on Earth… we need a place to mourn."

"Do you not mourn in your hearts?"

He looks down on the ground, the young grass covering the grave, pondering how, despite being so fragile, life is impossible to destroy.

"Of course we do… but we need a place. A place we feel connected to. I…"

He stops, not able to tell her why he's able to connect to this particular place, why it hurts him so much; not able to confess that her joy is his joy and her sadness is his sadness too; but when he looks at her, she takes his hand and he knows she understands. She doesn't mind. Maybe even knows that he _loves_ her. It stopped being just a silly crush or a painter's daydream long time ago. It's not one of those flashy, breathtaking love stories – never has been - it's more like his skin, his brushes, the sun that sets every evening and rises every morning. It's always with him.

She reaches for his hand and holds it.

The sky is a hue of heavy silver behind her. He can see her eyes changing, the distance between them becoming smaller. Turning her hand, so it's above his larger one he interlaces their fingers, giving a light squeeze; feeling the rough, battle worn, but warm skin under his touch.

Teyla looks down at their joined hands just like she is pondering an offer he didn't realize making, and he holds his breath an endless moment until she looks at him again.

He is captivated by her eyes because after a long time he can see a hope there.

"I understand," she says and _smiles _– almost like long time ago when she came to offer her company under an excuse of a jumper ride and medical supplies. It makes his heart swell with hope he maybe shouldn't be holding, warming him inside.

Evan promises himself he will paint her again one of these days.


End file.
